THE INDUSTRIAL POSITION OF WOMEN. 393 



tions from outside, instead of by domestic service. Thus domestic 

 work will be reduced to the minimum, to that part most intimately 

 connected with the personal life of the family. The need of domestic 

 service will diminish in the same proportion, and the problem it pre- 

 sents will be solved by its diminution, or gradual disappearance ; while 

 domestic life will be more and more freed from the necessity of carry- 

 ins: on a variet^ of domestic work. 



The obstacles to be overcome in bringing about this result do not 

 differ in kind from those which are disappearing elsewhere before the 

 ingenuity and perseverance of business enterprise. The difficulties in 

 the way of supplying cooked instead of raw food are very similar to 

 those being now overcome in the transport of delicate and perishable 

 food, and in the preserving such food in perfection through the whole 

 year. There is no reason why bakers should necessarily supply inferior 

 bread, or why cooking done on a large scale should always be inferior 

 to that done at home. That the work which remains to be so dealt 

 with is the most difficult to be thus treated is the reason it has re- 

 mained to the last. That our efforts in this direction are as yet at- 

 tended by imperfect success is no proof that this will always be the 

 case. Until business organization has advanced so far as to do the 

 work as well as the same can be done at home, and more conveniently 

 and cheaply, its imperfection will keep up our present system of do- 

 mestic service. 



It may be objected that so radical a change in the conditions of 

 household work must imply the destruction of the home as we at present 

 understand, it. But why should this be the result of the changes to 

 come, any more than of the equally great changes that have been already 

 accomplished ? The dread of it arises from the same sort of feeling 

 which has made it so difficult for geologists to accept the fact that 

 the wonderful changes recorded upon the surface of the earth have 

 been accomplished by the same agencies which are at work upon it 

 to-day, so silently as to be imperceptible to the multitude. 



It may be objected that the failure to marry is the reason so many 

 women are seeking employment ; and that, were marriage sufficiently 

 universal, the immense majority of women would be occupied in their 

 own homes. Facts do not seem to bear out this view. The propor- 

 tion of persons who pass through life unmarried is comparatively small. 

 The mass of working-women is composed not of middle-aged single 

 women, to whom alone the criticism could refer that they have pre- 

 ferred other work to marriage. The great bulk is composed of young 

 women under twenty-five, whose families can not afford to support them 

 for the sake of their domestic work, and the majority of these will 

 probably eventually marry. There is also a considerable number of 

 married women who, by the death or inability of the husband, are 

 thrown back upon the necessity of self-support. This last is a much 

 larger class than is usually supposed. It would probably at least equal 



